(13/12/13) - QPR break new ground with huge stadium plan
Transcription
(13/12/13) - QPR break new ground with huge stadium plan
!"# Sport Friday December 13 2013 | the times The Ashes: read cricket’s finest writers first Mike Atherton and Gideon Haigh report on the first day in Perth, online and on your tablet, shortly after the close of play this morning thetimes.co.uk/cricket thetimes.co.uk/sport SPORTS NEWSPAPER OF THE YEAR QPR break new ground with huge stadium plan NIGEL FRENCH / PA Exclusive Rail hub key to £10 billion project Matt Dickinson Chief Sports Correspondent Tony Fernandes has revealed Queens Park Rangers’ plans for a new 40,000capacity stadium at the heart of the most ambitious development attempted by an English football club. The new ground would be part of a vast £10 billion regeneration over hundreds of acres of West London, with Fernandes predicting that the project can turn the Sky Bet Championship club into an established force in the Barclays Premier League. “This isn’t just building a stadium but virtually a whole new community,” Fernandes told The Times. “The football club gives us the anchor, the huge number of eyeballs which come with the attention of being in the Premier League. It is a huge project and the stadium gives it focus and impetus.” QPR have already started investing in land on the Old Oak Common site, which is just over a mile north of Loftus Road, the club’s home for almost a century. They have made a reported bid of £21 million for a site close by, have an agreement in place with Network Rail for large tracts of land and are ready to put £15 million into securing outline y(7HB7E2*OTSPPO( +\!" planning permission. The £200 million for stadium construction is a fraction of the overall cost, but Fernandes insists that the club will benefit long term from doubling the capacity and some fans could even enjoy cheaper tickets. Fernandes has made his estimated fortune of almost £400 million through transforming AirAsia. “I feel we can sell 40,000 seats because we are building new homes next door,” he said. “I’m a big believer in flexible pricing and it’s one of my dreams with a better stadium, and London’s corporate hospitality, to reduce the cost of some seats.” Fernandes and his partners, including Lakshmi Mittal, the billionaire Indian steel magnate who owns a third of QPR, are seeking to draw in global investors for the site, which could also include 24,000 new homes, offices and an indoor arena. Boris Johnson, the Mayor of London, gave his backing to the project in the hope of also pushing through proposals for a new rail hub, Old Oak Common station, which would link Crossrail with the troubled HS2. The Mayor said that the new hub had the potential to spark regeneration “on a scale not seen since the Olympics transformed Stratford”. QPR have partnerships with local councils and the Greater London Authority, the biggest hurdle being securing hundreds of millions of pounds in government funding to improve infrastructure — with that money dependent on the new rail hub being agreed. If it comes together, QPR hope to be in their new home in 2018. Vision of home, pages 94-95 Roberto Soldado glances in the first of his three goals in Tottenham Hotspur’s 4-1 win over Anzhi Makhachkala last night Done to perfection: lethal Soldado helps Spurs make it six out of six Europa League, pages 92-93 94 !"# Friday December 13 2013 | the times the times | Friday December 13 2013 95 !"# Sport Football Fernandes’s vision for a new home is taking shape despite risks Football Sport GRAPHIC: RODDY MURRAY FOR THE TIMES Shape of things to come QPR plan to build a new 40,000 all-seat stadium as part of a vast regeneration of the Old Oak Common area in West London Stadium construction costs are estimated at £200 million. The entire £10 billion scheme covers several hundred acres of land involving 24,000 new homes, a 5,000-capacity arena, hotel, shops and offices 1 Old Oak Common railway station has been proposed as a new hub connecting Crossrail, the new HS2 between London and Birmingham, and other mainline routes “My biggest worry is that it is a complicated project.” For once, the famously exuberant Tony Fernandes is understated. The scale of the proposed development by Queens Park Rangers and their property partners is not just complex, but breathtakingly ambitious. If all goes well, an industrial area larger than Canary Wharf will be transformed into a mini-city in West London including one of the capital’s largest rail hubs, 24,000 new homes, shops, offices, a 5,000-capacity arena and, at the heart of this regeneration, a new 40,000-capacity stadium for QPR. There has long been talk of transforming a deprived area notable only for Wormwood Scrubs prison. Government has been locked in discussion for years over a rail hub in NW10. QPR’s hope is that driving through the stadium project, with the backing of Boris Johnson, the Mayor, will create unstoppable momentum for the recasting of hundreds of acres. The dream is of flats overlooking the Grand Union Canal in what is being described, optimistically, as “Willesden meets Little Venice”. For Fernandes, that vision becomes perfection when those new residents walk to a new £200 million stadium to cheer on a QPR team established as a serious force in the Premier League. After a turbulent baptism in English football, including relegation and losses that Fernandes says halfjokingly “sometimes make me feel suicidal”, this is the long-term plan for QPR imagined by the club’s billionaire Asian owners. “If I said we want to be Chelsea or Manchester City, then you would ask what drugs we are on,” Fernandes says. “But what I will say is this is fantastically exciting for QPR fans, and for London.” The site of Old Oak Common, or New Queens Park, is little more than a 3 4 10 QPR hope to be in their new home in 2018 but depend on Government backing for the wider regeneration 5 6 7 8 11 12 13 14 15 17 20 18 16 19 21 22 23 Loftus Road QPR first moved into Loftus Road in 1917, but the present four stands were built between 1968 and 1982. It was home to the first artificial surface in British professional football, from 1981-88. It was also home to London Wasps, has staged international football and rugby league, concerts by bands including Yes, and Barry McGuigan’s WBA featherweight title win over Eusebio Pedroza in 1985 mile north of Loftus Road so should be welcomed by fans. Transport links will ensure the ground is well served, especially if the site does become the proposed hub for Crossrail and HS2. The risks? Are there really 40,000 QPR fans out there when Chelsea must work hard to sell out as an established club in the Champions League? Fernandes claims the new community, which will include 7,000 homes in the first phase, already guarantees more bums on seats. As for gambling on QPR, at present second in the Sky Bet Championship, establishing themselves in the top flight, Fernandes says: “There is no guarantee QPR will have a purple patch but we think we have enough Agricultural Society 1904–1907 Kensal Rise Athletic Ground HARLESDEN 1899–1901 1902–1904 London Scottish Ground 1888–1889 Kilburn Cricket Ground WILLESDEN 1888–1889 Site of new stadium Welford Fields 1886–1888 Park Royal Ground 1907–1917 Crossrail route ACTON 1.5 miles A40 (Westway) Loftus Road 1917–1931 1933–1962 1963–present Gun Club 1888–1889 Home Farm 1888–1889 Latimer Road 1901–1902 White Westfield City Shopping 1931–1933 1962–1963 Centre SHEPHERDS BUSH QPR have called more grounds home than any other British professional club. Before playing at Loftus Road and White City Stadium, they had played at 15 other grounds, including ten years at Park Royal and three at the Royal Agricultural Society Showgrounds Fernandes says he has learnt lessons about,” Fernandes says. “If I was a coldhearted businessman, and I wish I was, then I wouldn’t have gone through the pain I have. Many people still ask ‘why QPR?’ You could buy a bigger club but that success isn’t yours. My whole life is about creating.” QPR say the only way to make a new stadium development pay is with ancillary property development, including the conversion of Loftus Road into more than 500 properties. Fernandes insists that the vast project will not affect the funding of the team under Harry Redknapp. “We will split this into several ventures,” he says. “There is a property company, a stadium development company and the football club. It’s not all in one pot. “My first step is to ensure we are a long-term occupant in the top division. One of the most impressive things I have seen in my travels is a poster at Everton saying 20 consecutive years in the Premier League. That’s what we aspire to. It is very hard to compete at that level with just over 18,000 seats. That’s untenable, even more so with Financial Fair Play.” There are many hurdles to cross, most significantly the hundreds of millions of pounds in Government backing necessary to improve transport links including at Willesden Junction, the nearest station. That funding is almost certainly contingent on Old Oak Common becoming a hub for Crossrail and HS2. For QPR, there is promotion to be secured and the prospect of a large fine from the Football League for declaring huge losses in breach of FFP rules, though Fernandes believes those regulations may be challenged by many clubs as unworkable. There are huge areas of land to be bought, though that task will be made considerably easier if Johnson creates a Mayoral Development Corporation at Old Oak Common, providing planning, land assembling and compulsory purchase order powers. QPR have already made Inside today Woe for sorry Wigan but Swansea through Europa League, pages 92-93 24 25 26 Across History Some of the grounds QPR called home ‘We have been working incredibly hard to keep QPR where its soul is’ nous about us that we should be able to rise up in football. We have learnt some hard lessons. I came from an oldfashioned background that, if you pay someone a salary, they are going to work bloody hard for you. That didn’t happen for us. We attracted a lot of people who were the wrong sort. We screwed up but we won’t make those mistakes again. “If we miss this opportunity, we may never have a stadium, certainly not in this location. We could look to move out of the area but we have been working incredibly hard to keep the club where its soul is.” To use Fernandes’s business parlance, QPR plan to “sweat the asset”, ensuring the new ground is not just for football matches but all-year entertainment. So should fans worry that this is all about a bigger agenda, using the football club to make a fortune out of property development? “I think QPR fans know what I am all 2 9 QPR hope stadium project overcomes hurdles Matt Dickinson Chief Sports Correspondent Times Crossword 25,657 bids for sites, and have an agreement with Network Rail for large areas of land. Fernandes, his fellow QPR investors, and Stadium Capital Developments, partners who previously helped Arsenal with the Emirates Stadium, must attract investment while putting together an outline planning application by September next year, in the hope that the club can be in their new home for the 2018-19 season. 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